Spec for Customer Discovery Spec for Business Case Spec for Marketing Spec for Product or Service
Topics covered in this report
| topic | description | course |
|---|
| Markets and Customers | Customer categories, roles, and the value proposition for each |
| Elevator Pitch | Concise, practiced pitch aimed at specific audiences |
| Competition | Competitive analysis, including a comparison matrix |
| Marketing Tactics | Appropriate to the growth model for your business |
General Specifications for the four Final Papers
IT IS OF ULTIMATE IMPORTANCE That the four students are working on one and the same product. That there is true alignment and disagreements are worked out in converation. Note that much of the work is done by all members of the team. It is just the specific writing of the report on the work is done by one of the four students.
- Each team will be writing four short papers as a final deliverable
- Each paper will stand on its own, written by one student with consultation and review by the others
- Each paper will have a logical flow, with a brief introduction and conclusion (and without a title page)
- Each paper should target between 4 and 6 pages, counting images. This is not a hard limit but longer is definitely not necessarily better (“If I had more time I could have made it shorter”)
- All four papers will have a consistent look in terms of fonts, titles, sections
Details
This paper is about the marketing aspects that the team decided on, tested and planned out.
It is sritten in three drafts, stage 1, 2 and Final. It will be owned by a single student (but input and collaboration from the team.)
Markets and Customers
List of customer categories or types, and an explanation of their role in your startup.
Be specific about why each customer type makes sense for your business. List of customer categories or types, and an explanation of their role in your startup. Be specific about why each customer type makes sense for your business. Based on your Value Proposition work, explain your conclusions about your product’s value to certain customers, as well as a sense of the channels you can use to reach them.
Elevator Pitch
A viable Elevator pitch. Make sure you practice it and could give it to “the president” if you happened to run into her in an elevator.
You might have more than one elevator pitch if, for example, it is aimed at two different audiences. Try it on some appropriate people and make note of their reaction and refine the pitch as required. Include the text of the pitch in your report.
Competition
What is your ecosystem? Similar products, complementary products, who is doing what? What or who are the major competitors. How do they compare with your product or business? Create a competitive matrix to show how your product compares.
What is out there that attempts to solve the same (or similar) problem for the same (or similar) users? How will you be different from your competition? You need to have an awareness of what else is out there, and often it is useful to think in terms of a ‘feature grid’
What marketing tactics and approaches do you recommend for your business? What are some approaches to acquring customers and growing it over time. As discussed in class there are numerous possibilities, for example a great social media presence, online and offline advertising, loyalty programs and more. Marketing is not free, so make sure that your business plan includes the costs of the programs. And be realistic in terms of how fast and well a tactic can be expected to work.